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A DUET WITH 
OMAR 



By 
ALBERT J. EDMUNDS 



With a supplement by 
James £. Richardson 



A DUET WITH 
OMAR 

ALBERT J. EDMUNDS 

With a supplement by 
James E. Richardson 



"Christ was a missionary to this island of savages in the cosmic sea." 
(Richard Hodgson to the author, April i, 1898) 



Philadelphia: 

Innes & Sons, 129-135 North Twelfth Street 

1913 



?5 |5*$ 



Copyright, 1913, by 
Albert J. Edmunds 



The author is under a pledge to the Simplified 
Spelling Board of New York to espouse their cause. 
See Buddhist and Christian Gospels, Prolegomena 4. 

Clarendon type is used to denote oracles and scripture. 



©CI.A346385 



Dedicated to My 

Joint-Authors 

Elizabeth and Mary Innes 

aged vi and viii 

I'm rooting around in the Bible all the time, like youi 



Also to my Sincere Critics 

especially 

James E. Richardson, 

Arthur and Madeleine Bradley, 

Jeannette I. Westcott 

and Elizabeth H. Frishmuth 



A Duet With Omar 

CANTO I. 

1 
In days of eld Imagination reigned, 
On angel wings were heights divine attained, 

But now we rear cathedrals out of fact: 
My heaven-wooing verse by Truth is trained. 

2 

No priest or wizard, murmuring for hire 
Can wrap the spirit in the final fire, 

But line by line and here and there we glean 
The straws that blaze and all the soul inspire. 

3 

I saw, saith Swedenborg, no earthly hand 
Write on a temple for the future planned : 

The things of Faith were heretofore believed : 
Now it is lawful that we understand. 



4 

The Seer of Skara died, and one year more 
Beheld the tempest of a world-wide war: 

Strange goblins in the Bay of Boston danced, 
Like Northern lights upon a cloudy shore. 

5 

The wine that Dogberry and Shallow drank, 
Who scoft at Bunyan by the Ouse's bank, 

Had turned to fire and lighted earth and sky, 
Burning conceits that unto heaven stank. 

6 

The planet rolled convulst: not Brandywine 
Nor Lexington alone was made divine, 

But Dogger Bank, Azores, Conjevaram, 
Till rainbow Stripes and Stars began to shine. 

7 

In wilder tempest, lo ! a Darwin born, 

To teach mankind the meaning of the morn ; 

Max MuLLER followed with the Sacred Books 
And saved religion from an age of scorn. 



8 

We saw the wrecks of a dissolving Rome 
And Alexandria besprent with foam, 

Dasht from a wave of Oriental faith: 
We traced a live enigma to its home. 

9 

Known at Benares, Balkh and Samarkand, 
A story went that all could understand: 

How that a hermit, in the noonday heat, 
An opening heaven saw, with angel band. 

10 

White robes were waved, as in celestial dance, 
Unearthly music did the charm enhance; 

The seer inquired what joy the angels knew, 
Then deeply heard in Himalayan trance : 

11 

The Buddha who shall be, the pearl unpriced, 
Is born with men to be the Hindu Christ, 

In Sakya town and realm of Lumbini: 
Therefore we glory with a joy sufficed. 



12 

Research revealed the spectral caravan 
Of thought : from Balkh to Antioch it ran, 
Where Luke was learning in a Hebrew 
school 
The Gospel he re-wrought and gave to man. 

13 

In the deep waters of the ancient dark 
We dived to find thy lost finale, Mark ! 

How Christ appeared to Peter all alone, 
Gave him the power, and left him true and 
stark. 

14 

Neanderthal and Java yielded skulls 
From ape-humanity's abandoned hulls, 
Dry on the shores of geologic time: 
One fact entire theologies annuls. 

15 

Then ever and anon thru thought's mad whirl 
The voice of Ruskin, blither than a girl, 

Soothed us with music, while a deeper tone 
Boomed from the thunderbolts Carlyle would 
hurl. 

8 



16 

Where shall we turn? Religion we have traced 
With Tylor, Frazer, from the frozen waste 

Of man's primeval dreams. What seer of 
dawn 

The nightmares of the night away hath chased? 

17 

Lo, Myers comes, to wrestle in the dark 
And fire Truth's tinder with a tiny spark, 
Proving that Man, the million-summered 
fruit, 
Dies not the death of saurian and shark. 

18 

The youth of Myers ends the Middle Age: 
When Science thrust him, in a noble rage, 
Out from the heavenly cathedral porch, 
Back thru the screened apse-window climbed 
the sage. 

19 

If unseen powers erst workt upon the world 
In ages far into oblivion whirled, 

Said he, they surely work upon it now: 
Search for the Truth in humble things im- 
pearled ! 



CANTO II. 

20 

My prolog was the door to homely facts, 
Not to Augustines and Theophylacts. 

Be humble, reader, now; descend to earth, 
Despise not thou my modern Book of Acts. 

21 

An instrument is ours of traveling sound, 
Whereby we talk the hemisphere around: 

When name and voice are equally unknown, 
How can the lost identity be found? 

22 

James Hyslop, man, to Science devotee, 
Has proved that trifles are the only key: 

Along the long dark line the lost is found: 
"Don't you remember what you said to me?" 



IO 



23 

Why should the Gospel word the learner shock 
Because it names the crowing of the cock? 

A trifle, say you. Nay, 'twas tragedy 
Unto the stern Apostle of the Rock. 

24 

When Buddha saw the famed Philantpiropist 
In apparition mid the morning mist, 

Known was the ghost to Anando by praise. 
Of Sariputto, who did once assist 

25 

With cheer the benefactor's dying day. 
O Anando, said Buddha, no display 

Of mystic art identifies for thee 
Our wealthy patron, but plain Reason's way. 

26 

Ah, gifted chorus, once by Myers led, 
Help me proclaim that none of you are dead! 
Gurney and Hodgson, Sidgwick, Podmore, 
James, 
Find me the fire that feedeth more than bread! 



ii 



27 

When past the leader and the queen from earth, 
A sound of rain declared an end of dearth : 

The sacred springs were welling once again, 
New channels hollowed by an earthquake-birth. 

28 

The gifted chorus had amast the facts — 
Dry, weird, grotesque, but scarred with moun- 
tain tracts — 
On whose hot lava-sides the leader strong 
Turned the new channels into cataracts. 

29 

Far in the past the century reposed 
Wherein our eyelids never had been closed; 

All were on tiptoe for the final book: 
We knew the lofty poet had not prosed. 

30 

He died, and Hodgson o'er the Testament, 
Thus left unended, strenuously spent 

His glorious manhood for the Master gone, 
While woman toward the work her labor lent. 



31 

Reader, three threads of labyrinthine rays 
Are all I ask of thee to feel, in ways 

Now new to Science, till a cycle dawn 
That shall dispel the darkness and the haze. 

32 

Whene'er I roam the Massachusetts hills, 
It is not seeking for the fame that fills 

Their vales with names like Bryant, Whittier, 
But Kate M'Guire, who there my fancy thrills. 

33 

John Wilkie, of Chicago, never went 
To Massachusetts, but ofttimes he spent 
A genial evening with a man of health, 
Oscar de Wolf, born there of long descent. 

34 

Fate whirled the twain to London; English air, 
October-chilled, soon laid John Wilkie there; 

De Wolf attended, gave him shelter, too; 
One day, asleep upon a parlor chair, 



*3 



35 

Wilkie, awaking, straightway dreamt he had 
Upon his knee a paper writing-pad 

Whereon he wrote, and some deep inward 
urge 
To read this message to the doctor bade: 

36 

Dear Doctor: You remember Kate M'Guire 
Who lived with you in Chester? To expire 
In Eight een-seventy-two her fortune was: 
That you in London thrive is her desire ! 

37 

Whereat the seer entranced completely woke, 
And turning toward the doctor silence broke: 

"Doctor, behold a message here for you!" 
"What do you mean ?" the doctor sharply spoke. 

38 

Without the fear of wrath or jeer, I wis — 
No subterfuge, explosive words to miss — 

John Wilkie simply to the doctor said : 
"I have a message for you. It is this: 



14 



39 

Dear Doctor: You remember Kate M'Guire 
Who lived with you in Chester? To expire 
In Eighteen-seventy-two her fortune was: 
That you in London thrive is her desire! 

40 

Such was the oracle, and all amazed 
The Doctor wildly on the patient gazed : 

"How know you Kate M'Guire and Chester 
town ?" 
"I know not either !" said the patient dazed. 

41 

The Doctor answered: I was born and reared 
At Chester, Massachusetts. Long endeared 
To me are all those hills and valleys fair •, 
But your illusion is a trifle weird. 

42 

From Eighteen-sixty-six to Seventy-three 
Northampton was my home. Thence would I see, 

Not far away, my Chester friends again, 
And Kate M'Guire ofttimes would wait on me. 



43 

Obliging girl she was, and found a pride 
hi serving me y but in dead days hath died : 

Of her these twenty years I have not thought ; 
I know not when she past out with the tide. 

44 

The Doctor mused: Do I remember Kate 
M'Guire who lived in Massachusetts State 

With me at Chester? Eight een-seventy-two 
Beheld her die. She hopes me kindly fate ! 

45 

Turn we to Hensleigh Wedgwood. Eighty-nine 
The century told when he beheld a sign: 

An arm and sword from castellated notch 
Did thru the talking wood with words 
combine: 

46 

I killed myself long since on Christmas Day. 
Would I had died the foremost in the fray! 

A wounded head was mine in Eighteen-ten, 
In the Peninsula. I past away 



16 



47 

Now four-and-f orty years. It was the pen 
That killed me, not the sword. My head again 

Pains me whene'er I re-descend to earth, 
Thus to communicate with mortal men. 

48 

I captured Banier; I seized his brand, 
And in the fortress found beside his hand 

Plans for defense. Yes, Banier. O my head ! 
John Gurwood. Failing power. You under- 
stand. 

49 

Now, Wellington to Gurwood had the sword 
Of Banier presented, which award 

Is limned in emblem of heraldic arms. 
In later days, John Gurwood, who ignored. 

50 

His wounded head, and redescribed the fight 
Of Eighteen-twelve (his ghostly date not 
right!) 
Was overcome by much unwonted toil, 
Reft his own life and sank forgotten quite. 



17 



51 

Hensleigh and two companions all confest 
They wotted not of Gurwood and the crest, 

But knew the Iron Duke's dispatches were 
By Gurwood given forth. As for the rest, 

52 

They wist not even that his name was John. 
While we surmise that books could lead them 
on, 
Or lurking recollection, how should thought 
Thus guide their minds unless the spirits gone 

53 

Leave a live memory behind, or haunt 

Some region of the soul? Ne'er do they daunt 

Or drive to ridicule, except that half 
Of man that lags and fears an idle taunt. 

54 

Reason our personality dissolves, 
Or shows that this with vaster orbs revolves 
Around some central fire, to knowledge 
naught : 
No doctrine all the hurlyburly solves. 

18 



55 

Be patient, Man! The star-lore time is slow, 
And like her cycles is the silent flow 

Of all our learning down the centuries: 
Millions of minds must think before we know. 

56 

"A jury of the choicest of the wise 
Of many generations" must advise 

The judges with a verdict, but to-day 
At least we know 'tis not the soul that dies. 



CANTO III. 

57 

Yet while the feet of Science aye must climb 
The endless ladder of eternal time, 

To find the Truth through alchemies grotesque 
And false astrologies, the high sublime 



19 



58 
Attends the poet. Science too he owns, 

But all her facts are in the tints and tones 

Of his internal being, made secure 
Upon Comparison's foundation-stones. 

59 

Thus Bucke, the friend of Whitman, wrought 

a tower 
Of Cosmic Consciousness, a work of power 
Because the cloud of witnesses are called 
Who from the minster-turret sound the hour. 

60 

The seer himself, who wrote the book, began 
By beatific vision, rare to man, 

Seen early in mid life, the age of most 
Who know the Highest and who lead the van. 

61 

A London evening with the mellow souls 
Around whose names the lettered circle rolls ; 

A long dark ride alone; and lo! absorbed, 
He saw a glory as of altar-coals. 



62 

All London was in flames, he surely thought, 
And from the chariot-window gazed distraught 
To see what this could be, then straightway 
found 
It was himself in conflagration caught. 

63 

His very head was in a cloud of fire 

That burned not, but illumined: earth entire 

And human destiny before him lay 
Stretcht as a map. Behold, a mighty spire 

64 

Of faith in God and Goodness rose within 
The soul that ne'er had been conceived in sin, 
But by the Holy Ghost. All shall be saved, 
For all are brethren of supernal kin. 

65 

Beyond a peradventure, every soul 
Revolves at last within divine control; 
All nature glows alive unto the core, 
And Love begins and terminates the whole. 



21 



66 

The vision faded, but the joy remained, 
And this was his religion; theories gained 
By church or search were swampt and 
whelmed away, 
Sunk in the universe anew explained. 

67 

Then ransackt he the wide historic field 
And found that kinsfolk of the soul revealed 
Their answering beacon-lights, which made 
the Truth 
No more mysterious, but a scroll unsealed. 

68 

The saints of God — the Buddha, Christ and 

Paul, 
Plotinus, Pascal of the fire — do all 

Tell what they heard and saw and inly knew. 
Behold the Holy City's outer wall. 

69 

Such is the book, no story wrought for gold, 
But twin to Myers, and as manifold, 



Tho rugged, like the Rocky Mountain 
heights, 
Where two worlds meet, the newer and the old. 

70 

In ages hence, when long arcades of Truth, 
Seen in perspective from the planet's youth, 

Upbuild the vast cathedral of our thought, 
Naught shall remain of savage or uncouth. 

71 

Allied to Science now for evermore, 
The Soul is marching in a holy war, 

And from the minarets of light on high 
A world-muezzin doth the music pour 

72 

That wakes the nations from the brunt of strife 
To thought and labor, with enrichment rife, 

And warfare only with the beast within. 
Hark! 'tis the rising tide — Eternal Life! 



23 



NOTES 

Verse 2. The greatest promotion of spiritual truth 
has been made by men who have lived for religion, and 
not by religion. The work of Myers was exactly of this 
martyr quality. He was a government school inspector, 
and worked himself to death in his fifties to re-establish 
religion upon a scientific basis. The hundreds of cases of 
psychical phenomena collected by him and his colleagues 
of the Society for Psychical Research were almost en- 
tirely from non-professional sources. The professional 
teacher of religion or ethics on the one hand, and the paid 
medium on the other, play a subordinate part. Indeed, 
they are often actively hostile to this branch of science. 
The two narratives here versified from the Society's Jour- 
nal are typical ones. Both are reprinted in the immortal 
work of Myers. Such experiences, occurring amongst 
people of all conditions, must, sooner or later, make them- 
selves felt as part of the facts of life. 

3 and 4. Swedenborg died in 1772; Boston Tea 
Party, 1773. The passage versified is from Vera Christ- 
iana Religio (Amsterdam, 1771, paragraph 508). 

5. The allusion is to the Bedfordshire "gentry" and 
"justices" who dined with Sir Matthew Hale in 1661, and 
made merry over the fact that their moral and intellectual 
master was a tinker. (See Bunyan's Grace Abounding, 
near the end.) When probed to the bottom, the American 
Revolution was an uprising against English snobbery — 
that coarse assertion of superiority by mere officialism 
and brutal wealth against character and genius. 



24 



The Great Ouse, whereon the boro of Bedford is 
situated; pronounced Ooze (International Alphabet, u:z). 

6. For neglected aspects of the American Revolu- 
tion, see The Struggle for American Independence. By- 
Sydney G. Fisher (Philadelphia, 1908), and also his re- 
markable essay : The Legendary and Myth-Making Pro- 
cess in Histories of the American Revolution, read before 
the American Philosophical Society, April 18, 1912. For 
the battle of Conjevaram in India, between the English 
and our French and Muhammadan allies, see London 
Notes and Queries, Feb. 2, 1861. (Pronounce Con'- 

jevaram' ; International Alphabet, k#nd3ev3raem. ) 

7. The Sacred Books of the East. (Oxford, 1879- 
1910, 50 vols.) 

9. See Buddhist and Christian Gospels, Vol. I, pp. 
77-89, for the date of this poem, and I, 185-186, for a 
literal translation. 

9 and 12. For the significance of Balkh in the his- 
tory of religion, see Buddhist and Christian Gospels, I, 
154; also the author's article: The Progress of Buddhist 
Research, with something about Pentecost, in the Chicago 
Monist, October, 1912 (reading brothers, instead of the 
editorial ''brethren," in the last sentence). For the part 
played by Luke in introducing Hindu elements into the 
Gospel, see Buddhist Loans to Christianity in the Chicago 
Monist, January and October, 1912, reprinted at Colombo. 
For the problem in general : The Buddhist-Christian 
Missing Link, in the Chicago Open Court, January, 1912; 
and The Wandering Jew: his Probable Buddhist Origin, 
in London Notes and Queries, January 18, 1913. These 



25 



articles are among the most important things that I have 
written, and it is my wish that they be reprinted at the 
end of Buddhist and Christian Gospels, in case I should 
not live to issue a fifth edition. Carl Clemen's useful 
work on Primitive Christianity and its Non-Jewish 
Sources (Giessen, 1909, in German; Edinburgh, 1912, in 
English) is thirty years out of date in Buddhist criticism. 

11. Lumbini is pronounced Loombinee in English 
conventional spelling. ( International Alphabet, lumbmi. ) 

13. The problem of the lost Mark-ending and the 
present Mark- Appendix is treated by Kirsopp Lake : His- 
torical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
(London and New York, 1907.) See also The Lost 
Resurrection Document in the Chicago Open Court, 
March, 1910. 

24. The story of Anathapi^^/iko's appearance to 
Buddha after death was (I believe) first translated into a 
European tongue in Buddhist and Christian Gospels. 
(Tokyo, 1905, pp. 204-206; Philadelphia, 1909, II, 195- 
197;_Milan, 1913, p. 266.) 

Anando, Buddha's beloved disciple, pronounced 
Ahnundo (International Alphabet, anando). 

27. Myers and Victoria both died in January, 1901. 

28. The Society for Psychical Research, founded 
by a band of scholars at the University of Cambridge in 
1882. 

29. Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily 
Death. By Frederic W. H. Myers. (London, New 
York and Bombay, 1903.) The reference to woman is to 



26 



the editorial work of Alice Johnson and to the assistance 
rendered Hodgson by his secretary from 1890 to 1905. 
Human Personality, I, note to preface; II, 616.) The 
tiptoe expectation was such that the whole edition was 
sold in three weeks, and London had to call for copies on 
New York. 

32. The case of Katy M'Guire is in the same work. 
(II, 214-217.) 

33. There is a De Wolf Genealogy (New York, 
1902) containing accounts of Dr. Oscar and his father. 
Curiously enough, two stanzas of Omar are quoted. 

34. "Bronchitis-laden" was my literalistic version, 
but to this James E. Richardson objected. October, 1895, 
was the date of Wilkie's illness, and the story was written 
for the Society for Psychical Research by both witnesses 
in April and May, 1898. 

36. The exact words were: Dear Doctor — Do 
you remember Katy M'Guire, who used to live with 
you in Chester? She died in 1872. She hopes you are 
having a good time in London. 

45. The case of Hensleigh Wedgwood, brother-in- 
law to Darwin, and himself a scholar of note, is in Myers 
II, 161-167. It ought to be rescued from the small print 
wherein it is read at disadvantage. It is curious that in 
1889, the year of Wedgwood's experience, the biograph- 
ical sketch of Colonel Gurwood in the Dictionary of 
National Biography was passing thru the press. (Vol. 
XXIII, London, 1890.) The article confirms the plan- 
chette. 



27 



47. The planchette's words are : Pen did for me. 
Repeated with variations. A sense of humor and a sense 
of the sublime are equally necessary in these studies. 

48. The storming of Cuidad Rodrigo, January, 
1812. 

50, 51. The Duke of Wellington's Dispatches were 
edited by Gurwood in 13 vols. (1834-1839.) The work 
was too much for him after the wound. He was working 
on the second edition (1844-1847, 8 vols.) when he died. 

54. Justice must be done to the problem of our per- 
sonality's final destiny, upon which the Hindus have done 
more thinking than all other nations combined. 

56. Shelley's Essays. 

59. Cosmic Consciousness. By R. M. Bucke. 
(Philadelphia, 1901.) This book was in the press simul- 
taneously with that of Myers, and it is unfortunate that 
they were then unknown to each other, though Bucke 
alludes to the previous articles of Myers. Bucke's vision 
has been popularized by William James in his Varieties of 
Religious Experience. 

61. London, England, not to be confounded with 
London, Ontario, in the life of Bucke. 

68. Catholics will remember that the Buddha 
(known in the calendar as Josaphat) is a saint of the 
Roman Church (November 27) and of the Greek Church 
(August 26). 

Blaise Pascal, in 1654, had a vision similar to 
Doctor Bucke's. There is no doubt that it is this 



28 



very experience that is meant in the Buddhist texts 
by the phrase: entering into the flame-meditation. 
For a mythical story about this, see the ascension of 
Dabbo, the Mallian, first translated in the Chicago Open 
Court for February, 1900, reprinted in Buddhist and 
Christian Gospels (Tokyo, 1905, p. 192; Philadelphia, 
1909, II, 174-175; Milan, 1913, p. 253). 

69. Of course Bucke cannot be compared with 
Myers for scholarship, style or extent, but their aim is 
one : to re-establish religion upon a scientific basis. 



29 



SUPPLEMENT 

Wherein the reader is introduced behind 
the scenes in verse-making 

Note. — Lacking confidence in his own poetic ability, 
the author showed the manuscript to James E. Richard- 
son, the poet, to whom are due the following words : 
rolled, in stanza 5; thru thought's, in 15; screened apse, 
instead of vestry, in 18. Verse 38 was also composed 
at his suggestion for dramatic effect, as well as 44. The 
doctor mused is Richardson's, tho the rest of the verse is 
simply my original draft of stanzas 36 and 39, slightly 
altered. 

Mr. Richardson rewrote Canto I from an earlier 
draft, and his version is appended for the interest of 
students. 

The poets who have influenced me most have been : 
Longfellow and Campbell (since 1868) ; Cowper (1869) ; 
Gray, Poe, Macaulay and a modicum of Byron (about 
1870) ; Milton and Aytoun (1871) ; Scott (1873, lyrics 
earlier); Shakspeare (1874); Calverley (1877); Myers 
(1878); Tennyson and Wordsworth (1880, but some 
lyrics earlier) ; Whittier (1881) ; Shelley (1884) ; Mat- 
thew Arnold (1898) ; Burton (1901) ; Fitzgerald (1912). 
The Omar was read to me by Frank W. Peirson in 1898, 
but made little impression. 

Richardson has been influenced by Swinburne and 
Rossetti, who have never appealed to me (except one 
chorus of the former's). 

3° 



My dear Edmunds : 

I have your drafts and have given them a day's full 
analysis, reaching, unfortunately, the inevitable conclu- 
sion : that your own metrical method and mine are so 
hopelessly dissimilar that I cannot really help you. What- 
ever criticism I can offer must be from a standpoint so 
different from yours, that I fear to accept any of it can 
only do more harm than good. Your own directness and 
my slow method, — that of crushing dissyllables, feeding 
in surd adjectives, and generally holding the lines back to 
the weariest possible elegiac drone, — have little in com- 
mon. The tempo of your lines and mine, in the one case 
so sharp and clear and in the other so disguised and 
thickened with artificial pauses, must, if each of us takes 
a hand, give the whole thing away. Retaining the end- 
rhymes, I have recast the whole poem as I should 
originally have metrified it ; using, perhaps, more of the 
"run-on" structure than is really characteristic of the 
good rubaiy. So you can see how different our notions 
of metre really are. I can't overcome the temptation to 
look at words in the artistic, as against the intellectual 
sense, i.e., the sound of them as against the meaning; 
which is very bad all round. If, however, you can use 
one of my own little tesserals here and there to any effect, 
by all means do. * * * 

Sincerely yours, 

JAMES E. RICHARDSON. 



31 



A DUET WITH OMAR. 

In our old days Imagination reigned: 
By angel wings were Heaven's vast portals 
gained ; 
But now? We raise cathedrals out of fact:(#) 
My Heaven-aspiring verse by Truth is trained. 

No priest nor wizard, muttering low for hire, 
Can whelm the spirit in Hell's ultimate fire; * 
But line by line, lo ! here and there we glean 
The straws that blaze and our freed souls in- 
spire. 

I saw, saith Swedenborg, no earthly hand 
Scribe on Life's temple, for high futures 
planned: 
The things of faith were heretofore believed: 
Now is it lawful that we understand. 

But he of Stockholm passed, and one year more 
Saw the storms rise of Change in world-wide 
war: 
Strange figures in the Bay of Boston danced 
Like Northern lights upon a cloudy shore. 



32 



The planet reeled convulsed; not Brandy wine 
Nor Lexington alone was made divine, 

But Dogger Bank, Azores, Conjevaram, 
Till rainbowed Stars and Stripes rolled forth 
benign. 

In wilder tempests, though, was Darwin born 
To show Man's soul the meanings of the morn. 
Max Miiller followed, with long-hidden 
scrolls 
To save Religion from an age of scorn. 

We saw the wrecks of fast-dissolving Rome 
And Alexandria grayed round with foam 

Dashed from green waves of Oriental faith; 
We clewed one live enigma to its home. 

Known through Benares, Balkh and Samar- 
kand, 
The word went round that all might under- 
stand: 
How one sad hermit, through the noonday's 
glare, 
Saw Heaven yawn wide with its angelic band ; 

The white forms as in grave celestial dance 
Move in strange ecstasy; pass round, b advance 



33 



To their unearthly lutings, meanwhile he 
Heard icily in his revealing trance: 

The Buddha who shall be, the pearl unpriced, 
is born with men to be the hlndu christ, 

In Sakya Town and realm or Lumbini: 
Therefore we glory with a joy sufficed. 

Our own eyes saw the spectral caravan 
Of thought: from Balkh to Antioch it ran, 
Where Luke learned,' — pondering in a 
Hebrew school, — 
The Gospel soon re-wrought and given to Man. 

In the deep waters of the ancient dark 
We dived to find thy lost finale, Mark! 

How Christ appeared to Peter all alone, 
Gave him the power and left him true and 
stark. 

Neanderthal and Java brought us, — skulls 
From ape-humanity's abandoned hulls 

Dry on the waste sands of Eternity . . . 
One fact. . .entire theologies. .. .annuls. 



Sometime, anon through thought's confused, 
blind whirl, 



l b w ^w^}-, 



34 



The voice of Ruskin, blither than a girl, 

Soothed us with music, oe'r the undertone 
Boomed from the thunderbolts Carlyle would 
hurl. 

Where shall we turn? Religion we have traced 
With Tylor, Frazer, from that frozen waste 
Of Man's primeval dreams. What seer of 
dawn 
The nightmares of the night away hath chased? 

Lo, Myers stands forth to wrestle with the 

dark, 
And fire Truth's tinder with one imminent 
spark, 
Proving that Man, the million-summered 
fruit, 
Dies not the death of saurian and shark. 

The youth of Myers ends the Middle age; 
When Science thrust him, in ignoble rage, 

Forth from the heavenly cathedral-porch, 
Back through the screened apse-window 
climbed the sage. 



35 



*Mr. Richardson mistakes my meaning here. 

Var: 

a But now we raise cathedrals out of fact, 

b "pass round"; substitute phrase of equal 

quantitative value. This used only for 

phonetic sufficiency. 



36 



INDEX OF PERSONS 

BY VERSES 

Anando (flor. B.C. 500), 24, 25. 

Anathapitf^iko (flor. B.C. 500), 24. 

Augustine (354-430), 20. 

Banier (flor. 1812), 48, 49. 

Bryant, William Cullen (1794-1878), 32. 

Bucke, Richard Maurice (1837-1902), 59-68. 

Buddha (circa B.C. 560-480) 24, 68. 

Bunyan, John (1628-1688), 5. 

Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881), 15. 

Darwin, Charles (1809-1882), 7. 

De Wolf, Oscar C. (1835-19—?), 33-44. 

Frazer, James G., 16. 

Gurney, Edmund (1847-1888), 26. 

Gurwood, John (1790-1845), 45-52. 

Hodgson, Richard (1855-1905), 26, 30. 

Hyslop, James, 22. 

James, William (1842-1910), 26. 

Jesus Christ, 13, 68. 

Luke (Saec. I.), 12. 

M'Guire, Kate (died 1872), 32-44. 

Mark (Saec. I.), 13. 

Max Miiller, F. (1823-1900), 7. 

Myers, Frederic W. H. (1843-1901), 17, 18, 26, 27. 



Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662), 68. 

Paul (Saec. I.), 68. 

Peter (Saec. I.), 13,23. 

Plotinus (Saec. III.), 68. 

Ruskin, John (1819-1900), 15. 

Sariputto (flor. B.C. 500), 24. 

Sidgwick, Henry (1838-1900), 26. 

Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-1772), 3, 4. 

Theophylact (Saec. XL), 20. 

Tylor, Edward B., 16. 

Victoria, Queen (1819-1901), 27. 

Wedgwood, Hensleigh (1803-1891), 45-52. 

Wellington, Arthur, Duke of (1769-1852), 49, 51. 

Whitman, Walt (1819-1892), 59. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf (1807-1892), 32. 

Wilkie, John E., 33-44. 



38 



COMPANION BOOKS 



i HUMAN PERSONALITY AND ITS SUR- 
VIVAL OF BODILY DEATH. By Frederic 
W. H. Myers. London, New York and Bombay: 
Longmans, 1903, 2 vols, 8vo. 

Contains the narratives in Canto II 

2 COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS: a Study in the 
Evolution of the Human Mind. Edited by 
Richard Maurice Bucke, [M. D.] Philadelphia: 
Innes & Sons, 1901, 4to. (With portrait, 1905.) 
Contains the narrative in Canto III 

3' BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN GOSPELS, 
Now First Compared from the Originals. By 

Albert J. Edmunds, M. A. Edited, with English 
notes on Chinese versions, by M. Anesaki, Professor of 
Religious Science in the Imperial University of Tokyo. 
Fourth edition; being the Tokyo edition revised and 
enlarged. Philadelphia: Innes & Sons; London: Luzac 
& Co., 1908-1909. 2 vols, 8vo. (Postscript, 191 2.) 
Contains sacred texts (which are here versified) literally translated 

The same in Italian (No. 21 in Sandron's International Sci- 
entific Series: Milan, Palermo and Naples, 1913.) 



Printed by Innes & Sons, Philadelphia, for Arthur H. Thomas, Morris 
E. Leeds, Arthur N. Leeds, J. Stogdell Stokes and the author 



Am ^3 ww 



LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 



MM 



018 597 159 4 • 






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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

018 597 159 4 



